Abstract: By exploring the origin of African American literature, its discursive blackness as well as the canonization of the black anthology, this paper proposes that Norton Anthology of African American Literature, with the Signifying Theory as its historical view of literature, establishes the black talk book tradition, revealing a literary tradition of the black vernacular penetrating into the black written texts. It highlights the signifying relation among the black classics in form of repeating and revising each other. By canonizing itself among the anthologies of American Literature, this anthology successfully subverts the Euro-centered and White-centered American literary history, revealing both reliance and resistance which are typical of the critical gesture of the signifying discourse.

Key words: history of literature, signifying, vernacular, talk book, discursive blackness